eckerj
1
@ABram
It’s been almost three weeks since my last new local customer order. Are you almost finished with the A/B testing?
@Irongiant3d @MindFuLL @evanr @Josh_Raples @OLCE @imagine3dps @Brian @steven_10 @3DPrintandStuff @Cotterpin @j1ceasar @3Dscaleworks @Filemon
4 Likes
3 months for us at iron giant 3D!
Last order was 2 weeks ago today. Was for $8. Before that was repeat business on 10/9.
Think its it’s time to call this round of testing quits but that’s just me.
Although @eckerj, I will say it’s been what a little under a week? It probably took them a few weeks too piece this mess together. It might take them a little time to get this next attempt together.
As much as I would would love to think it’s as simple as them just re-loading a previous state of the site it isn’t. It probably never will be that version we use to love either.
Hopefully they have taken our feedback and are now taking the time for the next version of things. It might take them a little but I’m ready to give them that. Their next major changes though better incorporate some of the changes at least a little bit though or I fear for what might happen.
I’m ready to give them that time though. It sucks because it means missing out on sales and more importantly (to me at least) the fun of this business but oh well. Not much more we can do besides keep playing like a broken record.
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eckerj
4
Josh,
That’s exactly how I feel 
I’m definitely not in this for the money… (well, maybe a little bit) But mostly the satisfaction of helping other people to bring their projects to fruition. I miss the challenge and reward of customer orders…
I’m also willing to give them time, but I’d at least like the courtesy of a little bit of info, rather than *crickets*
When you set the default distance to 250 miles on the searches for hubs. You might as well change the front page to the attached image, removing the word “local” as it not; it’s just printers.
My average position in the search results is currently 64 with 4k views, this value has dropped since the 3rd week in September.
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Like most here, I’m here just for fun. I’m averaging a few orders a week. It varies. Though my experience may be different as I’m in a city full of creative people and medical facilities.
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Hi guys,
In order to answer your questions and give more insights I’ve planned another Hub Hangout on November 12, 11.00h GMT-4 New York (or 17.00h GMT+1 Amsterdam). Here’s the link: https://plus.google.com/hangouts/\_/3dhubs.com/hub-hangout
Hope to talk to you then.
Cheers,
Filemon
3 Likes
Just to chime in on this, I’ve also seen a notable drop-off in orders. In the last few weeks I’ve had just one repeat customer and one non-local customer whose business I can directly attribute to a leaflet I included in a non-3D Hubs item I’ve previously sold to them. It seems new business, particularly local, is not coming my way any more.
I wonder if it’s partly down to the site changes and perhaps somewhat due to the fact that there’s been a discount on the HD service up until the last day or two. It’s been done to death on Talk already, but I also think the new hub filtering (250 miles, “best match”, etc) takes something away from us. Also, from a customer’s perspective, why would you not go for the service labelled “HD” - so obviously “better” - especially when you have a sizeable percentage off…? But since that’s ended, perhaps we’ll all see our big dip in orders tail off and things settle a bit. We can only hope.
I’m not going to give up on 3D Hubs, I love everything it stood for (and hopefully still does), and as others have already said here, I’m more than willing to wait and see if things change. Nobody can make the right decisions all the time and we all have to learn from our mistakes, especially with something so new, so this is to be expected as new things are tried and their impact is gauged. All I ask is that we’re not ignored, and from everything I’ve seen 3D Hubs staff saying lately, I don’t think we will be.
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Thanks Filemon! Next batch of Stroopwafel’s is on me 
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Brian
10
Thanks for the constructive feedback. And I can assure everyone on this thread that HD orders are just a fraction of the total orders, in fact our orders are growing faster month over month than just the HD orders, so HD isn’t taking orders away it’s actually helping the platform to grow by bringing in more professional customers. Through HD we want to become the platform that can serve all printing needs for customers, so they no longer have to switch between 3D Hubs and other high-end services. If we can pull this off together 3D Hubs will grow much bigger, which is a good thing, right?
Brian
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Brian
11
I’ll try to join in as well for this one 
Brian
12
Hey @eckerj @Josh_Raples good news, we’re killing the A/B test later today, I believe in the next hour. We will be working a lot in the coming 2 weeks to revamp the Listing and Modal on the /3dprint page, for one we want to include your customer reviews so it’s easier for a customer to browse through those. As soon as we have a version wireframed up I’m going to share it with you for feedback, ok?
2 Likes
Thank you for your reply - it sets my mind at ease and I really value the responsive feedback we get here. And yes, I couldn’t agree more, continued growth of 3D Hubs is a great thing for everyone, and I appreciate the platform and community you’ve built up here.
You say that overall, orders are growing - including for all the non-HD hubs. I’d be interested to know if you’ve seen some hubs gaining at the expense of others? Or to put it another way, am I (and others who are seeing the same trend) doing something wrong as a hub to see the order volume dropping which is contrary to the overall stats?
Will this hangout be available to review after the event? I think it’s an hour or two too early for me, but I’d love to catch up afterwards if possible.
Brian
15
@eckerj we’ve wrapped up the A/B test concerning the link to the Hub profiles, so they are back for 100% of the customers, please keep me posted the coming 2 weeks if you see a change in your orders.
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Glad to hear this. Hopefully it is the start of some improvements to better balance things to how they were or to make them even better for all of us. I look forward to seeing the progress in the coming weeks and being able to see some of the mock-ups before they get fully pushed out.
I think this whole experience was good for both sides of 3D Hubs, the users and the company. You, the company got to see just how much we care and what we are willing to put into this. You got to see just how big of an impact running these little tests can have on some of us. Well I always love trying new things, I think its important maybe you find a way of testing out these new features in either smaller pieces at a time or in smaller area or something else. Something that will not effect the entire site at once. I know that makes seeing if these changes are a success harder but when your playing potentially with peoples income source these things need to be a bit more stable.
As users we learned a lot too. Things like there are bigger plans for Hub’s and they will require changes. The way the website worked was the same for a long while and it never really crossed our mind things will change so drastically. I think that’s good though. Glad to see something in the 3D printing industry having success right now with all the usual negative articles you see on the internet with companies like Makerbot and a few others. Also we learned we have to speak up a little and you guys do listen. Your still a fairly new company trying to chart fairly new waters. There isn’t much for you to take inspiration from or use as a baseline anywhere else. You will make mistakes and we will speak up and have to work with you on them. And on top of that some of these changes will effect us negatively and we will have to learn to work with that. Maybe in the long run they will actually help and we will just have to weather the storm. We did jump on board early on and Rome wasn’t built in a day, they had a few hick-ups on the way up.
So thanks again for being so responsive to all of this.
1 Like
eckerj
17
Thanks for the feedback, Brian!
I’ll keep an eye on the site to see when the “View Hub” like comes back (checked just now and didn’t see it), as I imagine it’ll take a little while to roll out the changes.
I’d be more than happy to provide some feedback on any ideas/changes you have in mind 
Thanks again
Start a 3D Print > See Details > Left hand side, under your photo and your description should be a small little “View Hub” button.
Not the easiest to find but its a start
eckerj
19
Not showing up for me… I’ve tried Chrome and Firefox on Windows and Ubuntu…
eckerj
20
Looks like I had to remove cookies and browser cache… Does that mean that any customers that were browsing during the A/B test will not see the “View Hub” link?
Not sure if there’s a way for 3D Hubs web team to force a cookie update or not…
Thanks